FROM RIGA TO PARIS

I.

The second night Kate came over she brought with her half a watermelon wrapped in plastic. She had lugged it around all day, from the market to Jūrmala where she met a friend for drinks on the beach and then finally up the stairs to the Airbnb I was renting, on the 4th & final floor of one of those cliche Eastern European apartment buildings: crumbling & old on the outside, new & modern on the inside. She wore comfy shoes and matching black lingerie under denim shorts and a burnt red long sleeve button up. The apartment had high art nouveau ceilings with large windows. I had to close the blinds to keep the neighbors from seeing our photo session where Kate posed naked on the couch, the reading chair, and at the dinner table, before we moved to the bedroom, leaving the camera behind.

II.

The first night she came over, Kate wore a sparkly top that was hardly there at all; a gust of wind could have lifted it up and further reveal her already exposed back, pale and muscular. She walked up the stairs in heels, balancing herself with the handrail.

That was the first night of our two-night affair. I was nervous. I had spent the day cleaning & preparing a 7 layer salad (a creamy dish that my mother made on hot summer days in Arizona) and baked mac & cheese. Neither dish was romantic or sexy — there were chunks of garlic and jalapeños in mac and cheese and red onions in the salad — but I wanted to make her dinner. I was only in Riga for another week, and then I'd go back to Paris and she'd go back to being someone's wife. I wanted to squeeze in as many moments as I could.

I had also wanted her to stay the night. I wanted to have as much as sex with her as possible, in every position, in every way, to every tempo; with her heels on and feet up in the air; with her heels off and her legs wrapped around me; with short bursts of intimacy, followed by a long, gradual rise in motion; a round where she was cuffed, a round where I was blindfolded; a variety of orgasms: my come in her mouth, on her chest, streaks of pearl along her backside, and then deep inside her; to taste her lying down, standing up, bending over, to have the kind of sex where you don't say a word, and the kind of sex where you can't shut up; to hear her orgasm, to watch her body tighten up and loosen, see her toes curl and then stretch. But I also wanted to know in her in the moments between and after intimacy. To fall asleep next to her and see her face in the morning, first on the pillow, then in the bathroom mirror as she washed her face and brushed her teeth.

But she had plans to see friends at Old Town and couldn't stay too long. We had sex on the mattress on the floor and after I orgasmed she showed me how to make her orgasm: two fingers inside her, pulled out and pushed back in, not curved but straight in and out, gentle but firm. She laid on her back, her eyes closed. Her body slowly tightened and when she came it was a low, steady moan, like something deep in her was being released but she was keeping it at bay.

III.

The second night, the night with the watermelon, we had more time. Kate likes sex, but she loves to be photographed. I took photos of her wrapped in a towel — we had sex immediately when she came in, stripping her naked like we had known each other for years — eating the watermelon she brought, scooping out the wet red melon with a spoon, bending over and slurping up the juice. I took photos of her standing naked, her long thick hair down her back, and then pushed to the side, photos of her bent over on the chair, zoom in and you can see the lips of her vagina peaking out, photos of her on the couch, her long, bony feet on the coffee table, looking like a woman on a beach somewhere, where the sun sets in a glow just for her.

She stayed longer that night, but still not the entire night. She called a cab to go home but then I took her phone and canceled it. She stripped again and got on her knees. In the apartment hallway there's a large standing mirror — one you use to check yourself before going out — and there I watched Kate as she went down on me, her head gently bobbing back and forth, her hands on my legs and back to help her brace herself. I have photos of that moment, too. Eventually she moved me to the bed where I laid down and she continued to go down on me until I came. After a few seconds, she opened her mouth and let my cum pour down over me — and I couldn't help but laugh, a deep laugh rooted in pure joy.

IV.

I wouldn't see Kate again until eight months later, on the Pont de Bir-Hakeim, the Eiffel Tower as a mere backdrop in our reunion. She was visiting a friend and we had an afternoon together. We had lunch and drinks and went book shopping and of course took photos. This time she's clothed in them. And there's one pic of us, a selfie she took, she held the phone below, facing upward — there's a row of green trees overhead — and there we are, the two of us side by side, looking like we belong.